Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Carleton for that excellent intervention. I am very much looking forward to engaging in this debate on the kind of fact and fiction that is often introduced in this House.
Before I do, I want to thank the residents of the beautiful city of Abbotsford for re-electing me to a fourth term. I have had a chance to serve them for 10 years, and I am very much looking forward to the next few years being their representative here in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
What we are discussing here is a motion that affirms once and for all that, in fact, the previous Conservative government left the new Liberal government with a balanced budget. In fact, it was more than a balanced budget; we left the new government with a surplus of over $1 billion. Sadly, what we hear from the Minister of Finance, from his parliamentary secretary, and from some of the members on the Liberal side is the perpetuation of this canard that somehow the previous government left the Liberals with a deficit. That is patently false. They can actually ask the highest-serving civil servant in Canada in the finance department. He has said that the previous government left a surplus. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said the same thing: the previous government left a surplus to the current Liberal government.
Let us talk about how we even got to this point. As members know, back in 2008-09, the world was faced with the worst global economic crisis the world had seen since the Great Depression, and like virtually every other developed country in the world, Canada and our Conservative government did what was right. We invested in infrastructure to make sure that we primed the pump. We were fortunate, because Canada was the last country of the G7 to actually slip into recession, and our policies in responding to that recession actually allowed us to emerge from the recession as the first country to do so.
We invested in our economy, made sure that our economy was strong going forward, and created jobs.
We made a promise back then, because to invest so heavily in infrastructure at one time to prime that pump I referred to, we had to go into temporary deficit. When we did so, we did something that our Liberal and New Democrat friends opposed: we set a clear goal to return to balance in our budgets. In fact, in 2011, during the election when we were elected as a majority government, we pledged to Canadians that by the year 2015, we would actually return to balanced budgets. In fact, we achieved that a year earlier than expected. Even now, in this fiscal year, we have left the new government with a surplus.
How did we achieve that between 2008 and 2015? There are four key things we did. I already mentioned the $33-billion worth of infrastructure we invested in across our country. Much of it was transportation-related infrastructure. Much of it was knowledge infrastructure. By all accounts, that infrastructure investment was made in a timely, efficient way and delivered results.
The second thing we did was recognize that in a recession, Canadians do not need extra taxes. In fact, we continued to reduce the tax burden on Canadians. We reduced taxes to the point where today, the tax burden on Canadians is the lowest it has been in over 50 years.
The third thing we did is something the Liberals have found tough to do. In fact, a previous leader of the Liberal Party said, “Do you think it's easy to make priorities?” No, we do not believe it is easy to set priorities. Setting priorities is tough, but fortunately, Canadians had a tough-minded government in place that knew how to set priorities and make tough decisions. We were able to control the growth of government. We were able to control government spending.
The fourth thing we did, and something I am personally very proud of, was embark upon the most ambitious trade agenda Canada had ever seen. I am glad to see my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade is here. I look forward to working with him to ratify the trans-Pacific partnership, and also our free trade agreement with the European Union.
Since our government was elected in 2006, we were able to negotiate trade agreements with 46 countries. We were able to negotiate a megadeal with the European Union. We negotiated a trade agreement with South Korea, which is a market of 50 million well-heeled consumers. We concluded negotiations on the trans-Pacific partnership with 11 other partners within the Asia-Pacific region.
We did that because we wanted to open up new opportunities for Canadians in markets around the world, new opportunities for Canadian manufacturers, Canadian investors, Canadian service providers, Canadian innovators. We opened markets for Canadian exporters and importers. Our consumers benefited because tariffs were eliminated.
Of the dollar value of known economic benefits and expected economic benefits of all trade agreements that Canada has signed, 98.5% of that value was negotiated under Conservative governments, not Liberal governments.
It started with the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement which then morphed into the North American Free Trade Agreement, where we brought Mexico into the fold. Then there were 13 years between 1993 to 2006, where virtually nothing got done, while the rest of the world was moving ahead, full steam, opening up new markets. Our Liberals friends negotiated three small agreements with Chile, Costa Rica and Israel.
I am very proud of our record of an additional 46 markets opened up to Canadians, driving economic growth and prosperity in our country. These temporary deficits that we embarked upon provided an impetus to our economy back in 2008-09 and they paid off because we handled it in a responsible way. We returned to surplus budgets one year earlier than expected.
We are very proud of that achievement. We are also very sad to see the new Liberal government embark upon a set of policies that are just upending that apple cart of stability, of common sense.
The Prime Minister within days of being sworn in, without consultations, without warning to Canadians, made an announcement, not in Canada but in Malta, that he was going to be spending $2.65 billion of taxpayer money on climate change initiatives, vanity projects, not at home, not in our country, but in foreign countries. There is no accountability. The money is going to foreign agencies where we have very little oversight, and there is very little transparency.
We see that with the the approach of the Liberals to taxes. We see that in their approach to big spending, and their promises of big deficits. In fact, during the election, the Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would only run deficits of about $10 billion per year each year, and in the fourth year of his term, he would balance the budget. Guess what? Economists are now in agreement that these deficits will be much higher. In fact, many people are predicting deficits in the range of $30 billion to $40 billion a year. So much for making promises.
Will the Prime Minister and his government reach a balanced budget in four years? Any economist we might speak to will say that it is virtually impossible unless there is a huge hike in taxes on Canadians.
That is not the kind of government Canadians elected. As we discuss the finances of this nation, there are not many things more important than being transparent and forthright about the state of those finances.
May I suggest for the Liberal government, the Minister of Finance, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, and all members of the Liberal government that they be truthful when they talk about deficits. I expect the truth might set them free.
